Search results matching tags 'food', 'U.S. government', and 'useful websites'http://evpl.org/community/search/SearchResults.aspx?a=1&o=DateDescending&tag=food,U.S.+government,useful+websites&orTags=0Search results matching tags 'food', 'U.S. government', and 'useful websites'en-USCommunityServer 2008 SP1 (Build: 30619.63)Do you stand in front of your closet every morning wondering what will fit, not what do I want to wear?http://evpl.org/community/blogs/research/archive/2009/09/10/do-you-stand-in-front-of-your-closet-wondering-what-will-fit-not-what-do-i-want-to-wear.aspxThu, 10 Sep 2009 14:55:00 GMT9a7b961d-7882-4302-b701-732ca0e566f2:1811SuDocQueen@evpl<p>Here&#39;s my dirty little secret; I&#39;ve been doing that all summer.&nbsp; To look at me no one would say I have a weight problem, but thanks to sports injuries and other medical issues this summer,&nbsp;I&#39;ve been sidelined from my normal active lifestyle.&nbsp; Sprawling on the chaise lounge and reading instead&nbsp;of chasing a&nbsp;fuzzy green ball across the tennis court and doing yard work has been&nbsp;a&nbsp;surprisingly enjoyable&nbsp;change.&nbsp; Unfortunately, I didn&#39;t change my eating habits along with my reduction in activity and the inches have been creeping on.&nbsp;&nbsp;Every morning when I reach for the elastic waist pants I tell myself&nbsp;&#39;this is it, gotta&nbsp;cut back&#39;, but each night I eat&nbsp;my healthy, delicious, home-grown cherry tomatoes, and <em>still</em> reach for the French Fried Onion rings (ever get one of those big bags from one of the warehouse stores?).&nbsp; Since even my &quot;fat cloths&quot; are getting tight, it&#39;s time to get serious.</p>
<p>Counting calories and&nbsp;making a point of skipping the junk food is the best way to do that, but that can be boring&nbsp;(yeah, like that&#39;s an excuse -- but what can I say).&nbsp; Doing the right thing can be easier when it&#39;s&nbsp;also fun, and I know just the place to go <a href="http://www.mypyramid.gov">www.mypyramid.gov</a>.&nbsp; Be prepared for a near information overload.&nbsp; Designed and run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the site&#39;s main page has so many links to useful information that you hardly know where to start.&nbsp; There are&nbsp;waaay too many of them for me to go through here, but I do want to tell you about my favorite, <a href="http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov">www.mypyramidtracker.gov</a>.</p>
<p>You start out by telling the Tracker your age, weight, and height (why fudge?&nbsp;No one but the computer will know and if you don&#39;t tell the truth, later you won&#39;t get an accurate breakdown of what nutrition you need). Next you&#39;re asked to&nbsp;list all the foods you&nbsp;ate for the day, then&nbsp;the number of servings.&nbsp; After that the&nbsp;Tracker will&nbsp;analyze your intake for the day and shoot you to a page where you can choice to see if you met the 2005 Dietary Guidelines -- they&nbsp;use cute little emoticons as well as showing you the amount you actually ate and the amount that is recommended; you can see your nutrient breakdown for the day -- you get your total calories consumed along with a breakdown of your fats, proteins, and vitamins; you get &quot;Pyramid stats&quot; which show you graphically whether you got your recommended daily amount of milk, meat, veggies, grains, etc; and lastly you can view your &quot;healthy eating history by day, month, up to a year -- this is assuming you&#39;ve registered and have faithfully input your eating habits for a while. </p>
<p>Registration is free or you can&nbsp;use &quot;check it out&quot;&nbsp;daily without registering.&nbsp; I think the benefit of registering is that&nbsp;you can save your information&nbsp;for at least a year in order to track how well you&#39;re doing.&nbsp; Plus, you won&#39;t be able to access your &quot;check it out&quot; information&nbsp;from the whole day&nbsp;if you don&#39;t use the same computer all day -- no adding breakfast and lunch at your work computer then going home and adding dinner.&nbsp; You&#39;d have to start from scratch adding your entire food intake for the whole day.&nbsp; Frankly, I think the benefits of seeing how your eating habits change over time is well worth the registration.</p>
<p>Plusses and minuses of the Tracker...well, today I couldn&#39;t find Velveeta sliced cheese, so I had to compensate with the next best thing (American/cheddar cheese, processed), but I could choose one slice as my serving size. &nbsp;Plus, I could add&nbsp;plain M&amp;M&#39;s&nbsp;and select as few as 10 pieces as my serving size!&nbsp; The Tracker strives to offer a huge range of foods to choose from, from simple foods like bananas to restaurant food like McD&#39;s Big Mac.&nbsp; And they&nbsp;have very flexible serving sizes, from a whole apple (and you can even choose large or medium)&nbsp;to a slice as a serving size.&nbsp; My only&nbsp;real quibble is that they don&#39;t show you the calories for your individual foods.&nbsp; I like to know how many calories those 10 M&amp;Ms&nbsp;are verses one (or two)&nbsp;Hershey&#39;s Kisses so I know which food choice will be cheaper calorie-wise when I&#39;m limiting my sweets intake.</p>
<p>I won&#39;t bore you with the anal way I figure that out on my own, but I will tell you about a book that I absolutely love &quot;The Calorie King Calorie Fat <img width="163" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mBVhhcrIL._SL500_AA240_.jpg" alt="Red, white, &amp; blue cover with pictures of a burger and fruits." height="145" style="float:right;" />and Carbohydrate Counter&quot; (<a href="http://evans.evpl.org/search~S0?/tcalorieKing+fat/tcalorieking+fat/-3%2C0%2C0%2CB/frameset&amp;FF=tcalorie+king+calorie+fat+and+carbohydrate+counter&amp;1%2C1%2C/indexsort=-">613.23 CALOR 2009</a>).&nbsp; I looked up M&amp;Ms in the book, and it actually told me how many calories there were in one M&amp;M!&nbsp; Okay, okay it only told me the calories for&nbsp;the plain M&amp;M.&nbsp; It didn&#39;t go on&nbsp;and do the same for the&nbsp;peanut, almond, or peanut butter, but&nbsp;I was still impressed.&nbsp; Plus, it not only tells you the calories, it also gives&nbsp;the fat and carbohydrate counts.&nbsp;&nbsp;The book covers the normal&nbsp;basic foods -- like&nbsp;meat, breads,&nbsp;fruits veggies, etc --&nbsp;and&nbsp;an amazing array of sweets (like M&amp;Ms) as well as a huge section on restaurant foods.&nbsp; I found the Outback, O-Charley&#39;s, Sizzler, Red Lobster along with the usual suspects like McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell.&nbsp; Starbucks was even in there.&nbsp; Do you really want to know how many calories&nbsp;your favorite frappuccino are costing you?</p>
<p>If all our copies of Calorie King are checked out, there&#39;s always the Reference copy you can use here, or you can try any of these other calorie counting <a href="http://evans.evpl.org/search~S0?/dFood+--+Caloric+content+--+Tables/dfood+caloric+content+tables/-3%2C-1%2C0%2CB/exact&amp;FF=dfood+caloric+content+tables&amp;1%2C7%2C">books</a>.</p>
<p>I&#39;d like to talk more about <a href="http://www.mypyramid.gov">www.mypyramid.gov</a> but if I do that, this&#39;ll become a novel rather than a blog -- it&#39;s already leaning in that direction -- so just check it out on your own.&nbsp; If you have any questions on using it, pipe up here or give us a call at Reference!</p>